Round 5: How Jung Heechul Lost His Cellphone, or: Violets Are Not the Answer
Title: How Jung Heechul Lost His Cellphone, or: Violets Are Not the Answer
Team: Canon/AR
Rating: PG
Fandom: ZE:A (Children of Empire)
Pairing: one-sided Kwanghee/Siwan, Heechul/Jessica
Summary: From the window she was watching, while they waited down below. (Coldplay - Violet Hill)
Author's Note: just fyi, saesang = stalker fan
Prompt Used: MBLAQ - Stay Supplementary Prompt #2
The tower was tall and grey, enrobed in a cloak of glass and cement. In the midday sun, its surface glittered like fish scales. Heechul craned his neck higher, looking for her. The windows must have been as large as garage doors, but to from the ground they were no more than the size of nails. He had arrived late today; a crowd was already forming and pushing him back. A few trainees on the second and third floor balconies waved to the onlookers, and preened at the attention, but they were just small fry.
“Let’s get out of here,” Heechul said. “I feel like a saesang.” He eyed the crowd.
“Sssh,” Kwanghee whispered, and put a finger up to his lips. “The real saesangs might hear us!”
Inevitably, at that moment, the crowd of people turned towards them. Heechul felt the flowers in his hand wilting under the unexpected scrutiny. He shoved them behind his back; they were shrinking violets, after all. A dazed teenager snapped a photo of them. The rest, slowly and reluctantly, followed suit. Heechul scowled. He could hear grumbling from the paparazzi in the back.
Kwanghee pulled his camera out of his pocket and pointed it back at the crowd.
“Hi!” he said, and grinned. Heechul took his cue from Kwanghee and pasted a curt smile onto his face. From the corner of his eye he saw the lens extending from the face of Kwanghee’s camera. He had turned it on. What is he doing? Heechul wondered. Kwanghee raised the camera to his eye and began to fire away. Light flashed back and forth between the two groups.
This is great, Heechul thought. A fews shrieks arose, and some of the girls, young teenagers, ran off down the street, covering their faces with their hands.
“Cowards,” Kwanghee scoffed, and continued to aim his camera indiscriminately into the crowd. Heechul kept his mouth shut and his shades on. Trust Kwanghee to turn anything into a joke. He rose onto his toes.
“Do you see her?” he asked.
“No,” Kwanghee said, lowering the camera. “I told you, if I saw her, you’d be the first to know. Trust me. We should have come earlier.”
Heechul frowned.
“It’s a little late for that.”
He looked down at the bouquet in his hand. Already the little open faces of the flowers were sagging and wilting. They were gasping in the heat, sucking up all the smog of the cars and the city. This is a bad idea, Heechul thought, and stared up at the building.
“Forget it,” he said aloud. “Let’s just go.”
Kwanghee folded his arms; his eyebrows were frowning right now but his eyes were always smiling. It was a facial feature that Heechul found especially annoying.
“I thought you wanted to give them to her personally.”
Heechul swung the bouquet around impatiently.
“I’ll just drop them off at the desk.”
“That’s not very romantic,” Kwanghee said.
“Who cares?” Heechul muttered. “This is about to become extremely embarrassing.”
Kwanghee swayed on the balls of his toes and clasped his hands behind his back. “You came all this way and you’re worried about a little embarrassment?”
Heechul took a good look into Kwanghee’s laughing eyes, carved and teased into shape by some knowing surgeon’s scalpel. Kwanghee was not one to be talking about embarrassment, but he kept his thought to himself. A few people began to point at the building.
“It’s just a rumor, isn’t it?”
“Is she here? Was that her?”
“Are they giving out free samples?”
“I don’t see it. Is she really coming?”
“What’s going on? I think I see someone.”
“This is not my fault,” Heechul snapped. “I didn’t know all these people would be here.”
“Look, just get her to come down,” Kwanghee said. “We still have to get groceries.”
They sighed, and paced where they stood.
“I don’t get it,” Heechul muttered. He stared into the crowd, perplexed. “She can’t be that famous, can she?”
Kwanghee gazed upward.
“You kidding? I wish we could be this famous.”
Forty minutes later, the crowd had only grown. Heechul was disgusted. Didn’t the saesangs of Seoul have anything better to do with their time instead of lurking around SNSD’s dormitories?
“It’s cold. I want to go home,” Kwanghee said.
The flowers trembled in Heechul’s hand. He didn't want to leave just yet.
“Look, if we just wait a little longer, I’m sure the crowd will leave and then I can just-y’know, call her from the window or something. And then I can get this over with and then you can go get your groceries.”
“Get this over with,” he mocked. “You sound like you’re forcing yourself to do this. There are easier ways of showing your affection for someone, you know-"
“I want to do this,” Heechul insisted. He eyed the crowd. “I just didn’t count on having an audience.”
“Oh my god,” Kwanghee said. “You are such a pussy. Give me your phone.”
Heechul glared at him.
“Why?”
Kwanghee sighed.
“I’ll get her to come out.”
Heechul hesitated, and then reached into his pocket. He handed over the phone. Kwanghee dialed in a set of numbers, and then held the cell up to his ear.
“Who are you calling?”
“Who else? Jung Soojung.”
“Krystal? I didn’t know you two talked.”
Kwanghee shrugged with one shoulder, chewing on his thumb.
“We talk. We’re good friends, actually.”
Heechul squinted up at the windows.
“Good friends,” he repeated. “I don’t believe that.”
Kwanghee snorted.
“Well, it’s not like you’re especially close to Jessica,” he said tartly.
Kwanghee slid the phone shut with a click, and frowned.
“She didn’t pick up,” Kwanghee said.
Heechul wanted to put his hands in his pockets, or cross his arms. Because of the flowers in his hand, he couldn’t do either, so he did the next best thing: he slouched.
“Good friends, huh?” Heechul asked.
Kwanghee glared at him.
“She’s probably busy or something.”
“Yeah. They’re all the same, you know. Your friends. The ones you say you like-the ones that are supposedly your type. They’re just mean people. Like Krystal. And Siwan.”
“They’re not mean. They’re just busy.”
“Self-absorbed.”
“You’re just bitter,” Kwanghee said. “You wish you were my type.”
“And deal with what Siwan has to put up with everyday? No thanks.”
“Hey.” Kwanghee wrinkled his nose. “He likes it.”
“No, I think it’s just you,” Heechul said, and waited.
Kwanghee squinted up at the sky. Gleefully, Heechul noticed that Kwanghee hadn’t disputed the accusation.
“So you do like Siwan,” he said.
“Duh,” Kwanghee said. “Are you stupid?”
Heechul scowled, and rose once more onto his toes. The crowd looked had grown bigger still.
“But you never talk about it,” he said.
Kwanghee shrugged. “Why would I?” He asked. “I don’t need to, it just is.”
“How long are we going to wait here?” Kwanghee asked.
The sun had already begun its slow descent, and weaved through the skyline as if it was one gigantic, glassy mountain range. The wind was colder now, and heavy with the scent of
failed produce. Heechul glanced at his cellphone.
“Thirty more minutes,” he said. “The crowd will have left by then.”
“Give me a break. We’ll be here all night if you have your way.” Kwanghee began to walk down the street.
“Where are you going?” Heechul asked.
“Speeding up the process,” Kwanghee yelled. He bent down and picked up a rock.
“Do you remember Romeo and Juliet? There’s this scene, where Romeo serenades Juliet from a balcony, right?” he asked. “But to get her attention, he throws a rock at the window first.”
Heechul eyed the rock. It fit into Kwanghee’s palm neatly. And it had better stay there, Heechul thought.
“Okay,” he said. “You made your point. You can put it down now.”
Kwanghee tossed the rock from hand to hand.
“I don’t know. Have I? You made me wait two and a half hours.”
Kwanghee swung the rock through the air. Heechul flinched.
“Put the rock down,” he said. “Don’t be stupid.”
“C’mon,” Kwanghee said. “Girls like that kind of stuff. They think it’s romantic. Like, Taylor Swift or something.”
Heechul looked more closely at the rock. It looked awfully big-bigger than an egg, in fact. He was serious. Heechul began to walk towards Kwanghee.
Kwanghee sank into the stance of a pitcher, swinging his arm slowly through the motion of throwing.
Heechul quickened his pace.
“Don’t you dare.”
Kwanghee brought brought his arm back again, and this time he was aiming somewhere up high, above the balconies. He was aiming at the glass windows. Heechul broke into a run.
“Kwanghee!” Heechul yelled. Oh god, his mind was racing. He’s really going to do it, oh fudge. He broke into a run.
Kwanghee rocked back onto his left foot. He wound up his arm, and his weight sank forward onto his right foot.
“Stop!” Heechul yelled. He actually had meant to say, “Stop and think for a moment you stupid fool,” but in the interim between the words “stop” and “and,” the rock had flown out of Kwanghee’s hand.
It sailed through the air. The trajectory was pristine, meteoric-but it was still a rock. It bounced off the glass with a solid thunk. Thankfully the window didn’t shatter. The rock landed on the other side of the street. The crowd of people slowly turned to face Kwanghee. Somebody in the front pointed at the rock.
“Did you throw that?”
Kwanghee waved at him.
“Hello!” he said brightly.
Someone in the crowd took a photo. Under the shadow of the skyscraper, the flash was dazzling. A figure from the entranced crowd walked up and poked him in the chest. He was heavy-set, wearing a large blue polo shirt. A large camera swung from his neck. He looked like a saesang.
“Did you just throw a rock at Jessica-noona?” He also looked much too old to be calling any female idol “noona.”
“Are you a saesang?” Heechul blurted out. He immediately clapped his hand over his mouth. The man straightened.
“Am I a saesang?” he repeated.
“I’m not,” Kwanghee said.
“I’m not a saesang either,” the man said, “but you’re disturbing Jessica-noona. I think you should leave.”
“We have a right to be here!” Kwanghee said. He pointed at Heechul. “He’s just as much of a saesang as you are.”
“We’re not being disrespectful,” the man said. “We’re just waiting outside. There’s no crime against that.”
“No,” Kwanghee said. “I hope not.”
Heechul wanted to hide behind the bouquet in his hand. He was about to go run and hide down a side street, the crowd gasped and looked up.
Another figure joined the trainees on the balcony. She was lithe and thin, wearing a blue summer dress. Her hair was golden, even more so than the sunset behind her.
“Jessica,” Heechul said.
The saesang followed his gaze.
“Jessica!” he yelled.
The crowd began to point at the group of girls out on the balcony. Already a few cameras were rising up from the surface of the crowd like submarine periscopes.
“Jessica!” someone else shouted.
The trainees clumped together, leaning in towards each other with frowns on their faces. Jessica looked down at the crowd. She was looking for someone.
Heechul watched the spectacle unfold. He was mortified. Kwanghee hit him.
“Go on!” he said. “What are you waiting for?”
Heechul blinked at him, and then looked back up at her.
“Jessica!” Kwanghee yelled, and pointed.
Heechul joined in.
“Jessica!” He yelled. He jumped up but she didn’t see him, so he began to wave his arms. It was only when the other saesangs begin to take pictures of him that Jessica finally glanced his way.
“Jessica!”
Her shocked expression was priceless. Heechul froze as her gaze fastened on him. His arms slowly lowered to her sides. The violets in his hand shed a few petals.
“What are you doing?” Kwanghee yelled. Everybody was yelling.
“The flowers! Give her the flowers!”
Heechul looked up at Jessica. Her expression had shifted back into blankness and trepidation.
Kwanghee shoved him from the back. “Throw them!” Kwanghee shouted.
Heechul snapped to his senses. The flowers! He looked down at the bundle in his hands. And then he looked up. He took a breath and, steeling himself, charged into the crowd.
Get out of my way!” he yelled. Everyone shoved each other and backed up. He took a great running leap, bringing one hand, the one holding the flowers, behind him. He flung his body forward and let fly.
It was too soon to think of failure. What if he hadn’t aimed high enough? What if he’d hit somebody in the crowd? Those flowers were expensive-
He heard a rustling sound, like a footfall on dry autumn leaves. He looked up.
“Dude,” Kwanghee said. He clapped a hand on Heechul’s back. “You hit her in the face.”
Heechul gulped. He looked at the floor of the balcony. The bouquet lay in pieces near Jessica’s feet, finally exhausted and fallen to pieces. His gaze traveled up Jessica’s body, all the way up to her face. Jessica’s nonplussed expression stared down at him.
A great silence had overtaken the crowd.
The cars on the street began to slow down. He saw dull cellphones behind tinted car windows, tiny flashes of light winking. Jessica put her hand on her hips and turned around. She walked back into the building.
Everyone was staring at them. Heechul turned to Kwanghee.
“Maybe we should get out of here.”
He whipped out his cell and dialed the first number in his address book without even looking. He had set security to the first contact in his address book as ABC.
“Hello?” he said. “Pick us up at the corner of D- & B-.”
“Now?” The person on the other line asked.
“Yes, now,” Heechul snapped, and slid his phone shut. People, these days.
“Hyung!” someone called out.
The crowd was getting really big, frothing and bulging at the seams.
“What’s going on?”
“Somebody got attacked-“
“Was he aiming for Jessica?”
“Somebody turn that alarm off-“
“Is she OK?”
“It’s ZE:A!”
Heechul backed away, into the fading sunlight. The crowd was swaying back and forth. Some people were indignant, yelling their way to the front and wriggling through. He heard a dry clatter.
“That was my camera!”
Tires squealed behind him. He heard a click-the sound of a car door unlocking. A honk followed, and he turned around. There was an sedan in the middle of the street-a little old, but nondescript. The windows were tinted, but he could see the driver waving at them.
“C’mon!” he hissed, and grabbed Kwanghee’s arm. The car was still moving, but Heechul yanked the door open. It swung wide, and nearly bowled him over. Heechul shoved Kwanghee inside and climbed in.
“Oww!”
“Get your feet out of my face,” Heechul said. The inside of the car was cool and musty, but it had a strong scent of stale air freshener. He noted with some alarm that several long, stray strands of hair lay on the floor.
“I was so glad you called me, oppa, I didn’t think you’d really-not that I’d doubt you, but things like this are almost unheard of.”
“Tell me about it,” Heechul grunted and pushed himself into a sitting position. The seats were stiff and fuzzy. He reached behind for the seat belt.
He glanced up into the rearview mirror and did a double-take.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The driver turned back to face him. She was an office lady, her hair done up in a messy ponytail, and her rumpled button-down shirt undone at the neck. Her eyes were framed by thick lenses, the kind Minwoo liked to wear. And she was really too old to be calling him “oppa”.
“I’m your biggest fan,” she said. “I rushed out from work as soon as I got your call.”
Heechul gulped. The lyrics from Epik High’s “Fan” trickled through his mind.
“Uh huh,” he said, and stifled a growing sense of dismay. He had called Star Empire’s private security, hadn’t he? How had he ended up in this lady’s car? Who did she say she was? He pulled out his cellphone again, and scrolled through his address book. The first contact on the list was not Star Empire’s security service, which he had set to ABC, but some other number. Kwanghee peered down at the phone.
“AAA? Who’s that?”
“I am.” The driver said. “I have a friend who works for Mnet. She took your phone while you were recording yesterday and added my name to your contacts list.” She straightened her glasses and steered the car to make a left. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Heechul glanced out the window in the periphery of his vision. Unfamiliar shops, garage doors, advertisements and malls zipped by. The dismay in his stomach was rapidly congealing into a thick and rubbery panic.
“Actually, I think we have to go,” he said. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He looked at Kwanghee.
“Do you want to leave so soon?” she asked. Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel, glossy with polish. “We only just met.”
Heechul’s pocket buzzed. He jumped in his seat. Kwanghee pulled the phone out of his pocket for him.
“It’s Krystal,” he announced.
“You should take the call,” Heechul suggested. He frowned strongly at Kwanghee, wiggling his eyebrows. And tell her to come and save us, he thought.
Kwanghee brought the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
Heechul looked out the window again. His fingers tapped a nervous beat on the armrest.
“So,” he said. He cast about for a topic, anything. “You’re my fan, huh?”
“Soojung!” Kwanghee said. “I just called you. How’ve you been?”
“That’s right,” the driver said, and readjusted her glasses. She sat up.
“Where are you taking us?” Heechul asked.
“Wherever you want to go is fine with me, oppa.” Her voice was strong and confident, but her eyes kept flickering up to the rearview mirror.
“Well, it’s a long story-“
Kwanghee turned to face Heechul. He was beaming, but Heechul couldn’t tell what emotion he was trying to convey, or whether he was trying to communicate with Heechul at all. He felt a sharp tug in his gut and sat up.
“Watch the road,” Heechul said. The driver twisted back around to face the front.
“Sorry about that!”
Heechul let his glance flicker from Kwanghee to her. They both shared the same expression-happy, but sad.
“Oh no,” Kwanghee continued. “We left a long time ago. Honestly, I had no idea it would cause such a commotion.”
Now that Heechul had calmed down, he could ruminate on the situation. He didn’t seem to be in any apparent danger. In fact, he’d always told himself that it would be really nice to have fans, and that he should appreciate them. He liked having fans-that is, he liked fanmail, fanletters, fansigns, and fanchants; he even liked the fan merchandise and the fanmeetings. He just didn’t know whether he liked actual fans, one-on-one. This was a little unnerving. He had just enough time to wonder what it was that she supposedly liked about him before Kwanghee broke out into an obnoxious peal of laughter that was somehow both joyous and yet pained.
“Yeah,” he said.
“So, where would you like to go?” she asked. “I mean, I’d love to spend more time with you, but,” she laughed nervously, “can we park somewhere? I’m just an office lady, I can’t afford much gas, but I could take you out for coffee-“
“Actually,” Kwanghee broke in. “It’d be great if you could just drop us off at the nearest Lotte Mart.”
She paused.
“Oh,” she said, and her fingers flexed around the steering wheel, opening and closing. “Sure, I can do that for you.”
Heechul squirmed. Jerk, he thought, and twisted the seatbelt in his hands. There’s no need to be so blunt.
“OK!” She chirped anxiously, and reached up to fiddle with the GPS attached to her windshield. Heechul squinted at the tiny screen.
“Sorry,” he said to the girl. “Our busy schedules-“
“No, I completely understand.”
Kwanghee cradled Heechul’s cellphone against his cheek. Heechul made a mental note to wipe it before using it again.
“Oh really? I didn’t know you had another variety appearance, you never tell me these things!” Kwanghee continued. Heechul rolled his eyes. This was useless.
“My minutes,” he said, and held out his hand.
“Mmhm,” Kwanghee said, and turned away, pointedly ignoring Heechul. “Wow, that sucks.”
Heechul sighed and shoved his hand back in his pocket. He could hear music playing in the background, tiny and indistinct.
“Oppa, were you going to see SNSD’s Jessica?” The driver asked. Heechul nodded.
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
The driver smiled shyly at him.
“I like you, oppa. I want to know everything about you. If I could, I’d like to ask you out on a date.”
“Uh,” Heechul said. “Wow.”
That had been forward. He stumbled onto a protest.
“But you know, I have schedules, and, um, we have to avoid paparazzi, and it’s not good for my reputation…”
A thought occurred to him.
“But you know I like Jessica,” he said.
She smiled, looking straight ahead.
“I know. “
“Well then,” Heechul said. “You should know that I can’t return your feelings-at least not like that.”
She laughed again.
“Oppa,” she said, only now she sounded much older, much more mature and self-assured. “I know.”
The car rumbled to a halt.
“Here you are,” she said. Kwanghee got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. Heechul followed him out. He lingered at the front of the car. The driver rolled down the window.
“Yes?” she asked, and tugged at a small scarf around her neck. Heechul wanted to tell her that it was a nice touch, brilliant really, a bright splash of color against the drab palette of her business casual. He still had a rose hidden up his pants leg. He’d been saving it for Jessica, anticipating a more intimate setting.
“Hold on,” he said, and turned around, sinking into a squat. Finally, he wrestled the thorny plant out of his socks, and turning around, held it out to her.
“Um,” he said. “For you.”
She reached out for it and grabbed his hand instead. Heechul froze.
“Oppa,” she said. She was much too old for it and she knew it, but it didn’t stop her from trying. Heechul was torn between the desire to placate her and to run screaming into the store. But she only waited, their hands intertwined around the prickly stem, and the longer he stayed, the more it felt as if she had been the one waiting to give the flower to him.
He wrenched his hand free and bowed, and nearly hit his head against the petals.
“Thanks, sorry, gotta go!” he said, and turned around. He was hot and angry and scared and his jacket had trapped all the cold sweat down his back like a prison.
She didn’t linger, and rejoined the flow of traffic after only minimal hesitation. Once she was out of sight, he punched Kwanghee in the shoulder.
“Oww!” Kwanghee yelped. The expression on his face was one of painful delight. He was still on the phone.
“Could you be any more-“ Heechul shook his head and shoved his fist back in his pocket. “Forget it.”
“What?” Kwanghee asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Now can I have my phone back?”
They ducked into the Lotte Mart. Heechul headed straight for the food section and reached into his pocket for the grocery list. His fingers brushed against the phone in his pocket, and it jumped in his hands. He pulled it out, looked at the screen, and winced.
“Who was it?”
“Nobody,” Heechul said, and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He scowled at the passerby and grabbed an abandoned cart. They walked down Aisle #3, cruising the shelves for bleach and detergent. Kwanghee, as usual, displayed far more insight than Heechul gave him credit for.
“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” he asked. Heechul folded the grocery list in his hands.
“We need ramyun,” he said. He pulled a pen out of his back pocket, and made a note on the back side of the page.
“You’re not picking up the phone.”
“No,” Heechul said. He made two 90 degree turns at the end of the aisle. This one held babies and mothers and canned soup.
“Why are you being such a jerk?” Kwanghee asked. Heechul gripped the handlebars of the shopping cart. He was reminded of a roller coaster ride, only in slow motion, as if he was climbing up some winding path from which he would soon plummet.
“It’s creepy and persistent.”
Kwanghee snickered, poking at the dangling packets of nuts and chocolate.
“It’s love.”
Heechul shuddered.
“Don’t talk to me about her,” he said. “She scares me.”
“She likes you,” Kwanghee, and it was like someone had pulled the brakes on the ride. Was there still time to disembark? Heechul dawdled halfway down Aisle #2 and checked the list again. Tofu, but they needed to get that last. Next… He walked away from Kwanghee, into an intersection. Kimchi.
“And I don’t like her.”
“She’s a fan,” Kwanghee said. “Be careful, she might be recording you as we speak.”
“Management should have taken care of this,” Heechul said. “How did she get access to my phone?”
“When there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Heechul glanced back at Kwanghee. When Kwanghee was being honest, he could be quite trite.
“Is that how you handle things with Siwan?” he asked, partly to distract, and partly to prove a point. Kwanghee frowned. A shadow flickered across his face.
“Don’t be mean.”
They moseyed down the aisle and turned into a larger pathway. They needed to cross over into aisle #6, which held jarred and canned goods.
“Look,” Heechul snapped. “It’s not my fault she likes me.”
“You talked to her. You let her in,” Kwanghee said.
“So it’s my fault now?”
Aisle 4.
“You let her think she had a chance,” Kwanghee said. “By not rejecting her outright.”
“Her feelings are not my responsibility,” Heechul protested. “I don’t have time to babysit people.”
“Sure, why’d you chat her up in the car back then?”
Aisle 5.
“I wasn’t chatting her up, that was a defense mechanism. Someone had to make conversation. Jesus,” Heechul shook his head. “You people keep twisting everything. I’m not a skirt-chaser.”
Aisle 6. They turned the corner.
“You have to admit, though,” Kwanghee said. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. Didn’t you tell us about that girl, before you were a trainee-“
“That was genuine,” Heechul said quickly.
Canned specialty meats: eel, squid, pigs' feet, chicken…
“And the receptionist at the front desk, you chat all the time-“
“She’s lonely, we were both new to Seoul at the time.”
Canned beans, barley, soups and stews…
“Admit it, you like it. You like getting people to like you, you like talking to them and making them feel like they should like you.”
“It’s a crime to make small talk? To be well-liked by the fairer sex?”
Canned liquids: soya milk, coconut milk, milk powder…
Kwanghee changed tactics.
“If you really cared, you’d tell her to back off. At least text her back. Tell her you’re not interested, instead of just ignoring her. That’s irresponsible.”
“What would be the point? She’d just swoon over the fact that I responded. At least this way I’m not leading her on or anything.”
Jars: honey, preserved lychee, fermented plums…
Kwanghee snickered.
“Are you dumb?” he asked. “That’s the whole damn point. She wants to be led on.”
Jars: kimchi, 20 different kinds.
He stopped the cart and grabbed the local brand of kimchi off the shelf, two jars. He stared down at them, then reconsidered, grabbing a third jar. They moved on.
“I already told her I liked Jessica,” Heechul muttered. He tossed the phone around in his pocket, end over end. “It’s her own fault if she can’t face reality.”
He stopped the cart, and pointed up.
“We need the Shin ramyun,” he said. “Get the chicken, alright? Nobody liked the beef last time.”
“Jessica probably thinks the same thing about you too,” Kwanghee pointed out. He reached up and grabbed a bulk bundle of cup ramyun and placed it into the cart, next to the kimchi.
“That’s different,” Heechul said. “I still have a chance. Jessica hasn’t rejected me yet.”
“How do you know? Maybe she does the same thing too-maybe she’s just not going to respond. At all.”
“She wouldn’t do that. She’s different.”
“Different? You mean different, like different from you and I and that office lady? Different, like maybe she doesn’t stalk her crushes? Like what, she’s not an obsessive freak?”
“Different, like you think Siwan is different from everybody else,” Heechul shot back.
Kwanghee whistled. “Differ-ent,” he enunciated. “You think she’s the real deal.”
“I never said-“
“Okay. Well, go on then. Prove it. If you call her, will she pick up? Or will she just ignore you and wait for you to go away?”
“I know my limits, I know when to stop-“ he broke off, and glared at Kwanghee. “Unlike some people.”
They changed subject.
“Well, if nothing else, doesn’t that encourage you?” Kwanghee asked. “To see someone else trying so hard for their love? Makes you want to do a better job with our own love life, doesn’t it?”
Heechul scowled, and unfolded the grocery list. Tofu, they needed tofu. No, they didn’t need tofu. They needed a joke to defuse the tension.
“Hyung, he said. I watch you try all the time. It’s not encouraging at all.”
“Ha-ha. Stupid, I was talking about her.”
Heechul folded up the list again. Wrong joke, idiot, he told himself. Now you have to follow through.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Heechul said. “You’re just as annoying and unwanted to Siwan as she is to me.”
“Siwan and I are friends,” Kwanghee said.
Heechul sped up. He never should have brought up Siwan. This kind of banter walked a thin line between being truthful and treacherous.
“Sure,” he said. “Or maybe he just let you in and didn’t realize how persistent you are.”
Kwanghee easily matched his speed. His long legs swung through the air.
“Don’t compare me to little miss Office Lady,” Kwanghee said lightly. “We’re not the same.”
The cart clattered in time to the rhythm of his speech and his footsteps.
“He probably feels sorry for you,” Heechul said. “I bet Siwan only meant to talk you just the one time, he probably felt sorry for you or something.”
Something dark and hopeful was rising in Heechul’s throat. Stop this, he told himself. Shut up, stop being mean. But instead he continued.
“Or he didn’t know what he was getting into, but by then, it was too late. He let you in,” Heechul said bluntly. “But he can still shut you out.”
Heechul didn’t look back, but he saw the clenched fist swinging at Kwanghee’s side. He was silent for a moment.
“Well spoken from the casanova,” Kwanghee said. His voice was low. “And you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Heechul gripped the cart and flexed his fingers on the handle.
“I told you not to call me that!” he burst out.
The cart hit a pole.
Silence. A child jumped up and down somewhere at the other end of the corridor. Near an icy vat of meat, another man’s cart moaned and squeaked. Heechul looked around, and spotted the tofu soaking in some plastic bins along the wall.
“I’ll get the tofu,” he said, and walked off. He took his time inspecting the squishy packets of compressed soybean, turning them over and comparing their ingredients and prices and sell-by dates.
Kwanghee coughed from behind him. Heechul jumped, and then sighed. He turned around and tossed the packet he was holding into the cart.
The freezer was exhaling on Heechul, one long steady breath of machinery and compressed air. He put his hands back onto the handlebar and turned the cart from side to side.
“Anyways, I can’t be worried about crazies. Like you said,” he said bitterly, “I have my own situation to worry about.” He flashed an ingratiating smile but Kwanghee didn’t catch it. Instead, he was staring into the putrid vats of seaweed further down.
“I’ve probably created a bad situation for now,” Heechul mumbled. “I think I’ll just lie low. Or do you think I should try and contact her? Explain things?”
Kwanghee refused to look up. Heechul ran a hand through his hair and stared down at the groceries.
“I don’t want her to get the wrong impression,” Heechul continued. “Because that’s not who I am.”
It was very rare that Kwanghee was silent. Heechul pulled out the list again.
“Let’s go,” he mumbled. Keeping his eyes on the floor tiles, he began to walk, taking many small, quick, steps. The cart rolled shakily down the aisle, and he nearly overturned a stand of potatoes. Kwanghee’s hand dipped into the periphery of his vision and steadied the cart. They slowed down to a reasonable pace. The checkout counters were on the other side of the store.
They wheeled into the checkout line.
The cashier was a young woman, perky in her red vest with her bright little pins, totoro and some other little cartoons. Her face were puffy and swollen, an obvious sign of plastic surgery not fully healed, but her smile was big and inviting, and before Heechul could stop himself he had opened his mouth.
“I like the pins,” he said.
She beamed at him, and thanked him for the compliment. He wondered what she’d got done. She looked conventionally pleasing now. That’s what consumerism did to you-made you all the same so you have to buy out just to look different. The insight made him colder, and he returned her smile less confidently.
She kept her head down and scanned the produce quickly and silently. Another worker, standing at the end of the counter, grabbed their purchases and placed them into paper bags that snapped as she opened them.
“217400 won,” the cashier said, the pins shining brightly on her vest.
“You aren’t even giving her a chance,” Kwanghee said. He swiped his card through, sloppily scribbling his signature onto the datapad.
“Is that what you think Siwan is going to give you?” Heechul asked. “A second chance?”
He took the bags from the packer. He handed one to Kwanghee. They left the store, splashing into the hot and humid evening outside.
“That was uncalled for,” Kwanghee said. “You don’t know anything about it at all.”
That wasn’t true, but Heechul had said enough for today.
Kwanghee looked up at the skyscrapers around them, lit up with glowing tubes of inert gases like neon and argon.
“I hope you know what you’re getting into.” Kwanghee shouted over the traffic. “If Jessica doesn’t like you, there’s nothing you can do. You better hope that you fell in love with someone who can love you back. I’m fine being Siwan’s best friend, but what are you going to do?”
They stopped at a crossing.
“Can you handle that?” Kwanghee asked. “You’re going to be feeling the same exact way that girl feels.”
“I know,” Heechul snapped.
It was the same old bullshit again. Heechul should just stay away from girls. Girls loved Heechul, but Heechul always wanted better. Heechul was great and witty and funny but it only meant that the breakups came harder. And somehow it was always his fault. He wouldn’t have minded so much if people just took responsibility for the way they felt instead of expecting other people to accommodate them.
He glared at the ground, clenching and unclenching his fists. The feeling sustained him all the way back to the dorm, where he took off his shoes, placed the groceries onto the table, and shuffled back to his room. He grabbed his notebook and began to root around for a pen. A belligerent hum interrupted him. He sighed and straightened, reaching into his pocket.
He pulled out the phone, finally, and looked at the screen.
Thanks for the flowers :) Want to get coffee sometime?
-AAA
Heechul almost screamed. Instead, he unlocked the window, pushed it open, pulled his hand back, and hurled the phone out into space. He stood at the windowsill, chest heaving. Then he slammed the window down again and sat on the floor, and put his head in his hands.
Later, he wouldn’t be able to explain to the manager and Junyoung why he had done it, only able to say that the text message had disturbed him. But, he confessed to Kwanghee later that night, it hadn’t really been the text message itself that had frightened him, but the curious sense of displacement he had experienced afterwards. As he explained it more fully, he had felt that, while staring out the window, he had in fact been in two places at once. He knew he had been next to the window, staring down at the remnants of his phone, but somehow he had also been down there in that tiny square plot of dumpster, scruffy grass, and weeds. He had been looking up, grazing the skyline for someone’s elusive gaze. And at the last second, he had looked up into himself.
Poll Round 5: How Jung Heechul Lost His Cellphone, or: Violets Are Not the Answer
Team: Canon/AR
Rating: PG
Fandom: ZE:A (Children of Empire)
Pairing: one-sided Kwanghee/Siwan, Heechul/Jessica
Summary: From the window she was watching, while they waited down below. (Coldplay - Violet Hill)
Author's Note: just fyi, saesang = stalker fan
Prompt Used: MBLAQ - Stay Supplementary Prompt #2
The tower was tall and grey, enrobed in a cloak of glass and cement. In the midday sun, its surface glittered like fish scales. Heechul craned his neck higher, looking for her. The windows must have been as large as garage doors, but to from the ground they were no more than the size of nails. He had arrived late today; a crowd was already forming and pushing him back. A few trainees on the second and third floor balconies waved to the onlookers, and preened at the attention, but they were just small fry.
“Let’s get out of here,” Heechul said. “I feel like a saesang.” He eyed the crowd.
“Sssh,” Kwanghee whispered, and put a finger up to his lips. “The real saesangs might hear us!”
Inevitably, at that moment, the crowd of people turned towards them. Heechul felt the flowers in his hand wilting under the unexpected scrutiny. He shoved them behind his back; they were shrinking violets, after all. A dazed teenager snapped a photo of them. The rest, slowly and reluctantly, followed suit. Heechul scowled. He could hear grumbling from the paparazzi in the back.
Kwanghee pulled his camera out of his pocket and pointed it back at the crowd.
“Hi!” he said, and grinned. Heechul took his cue from Kwanghee and pasted a curt smile onto his face. From the corner of his eye he saw the lens extending from the face of Kwanghee’s camera. He had turned it on. What is he doing? Heechul wondered. Kwanghee raised the camera to his eye and began to fire away. Light flashed back and forth between the two groups.
This is great, Heechul thought. A fews shrieks arose, and some of the girls, young teenagers, ran off down the street, covering their faces with their hands.
“Cowards,” Kwanghee scoffed, and continued to aim his camera indiscriminately into the crowd. Heechul kept his mouth shut and his shades on. Trust Kwanghee to turn anything into a joke. He rose onto his toes.
“Do you see her?” he asked.
“No,” Kwanghee said, lowering the camera. “I told you, if I saw her, you’d be the first to know. Trust me. We should have come earlier.”
Heechul frowned.
“It’s a little late for that.”
He looked down at the bouquet in his hand. Already the little open faces of the flowers were sagging and wilting. They were gasping in the heat, sucking up all the smog of the cars and the city. This is a bad idea, Heechul thought, and stared up at the building.
“Forget it,” he said aloud. “Let’s just go.”
Kwanghee folded his arms; his eyebrows were frowning right now but his eyes were always smiling. It was a facial feature that Heechul found especially annoying.
“I thought you wanted to give them to her personally.”
Heechul swung the bouquet around impatiently.
“I’ll just drop them off at the desk.”
“That’s not very romantic,” Kwanghee said.
“Who cares?” Heechul muttered. “This is about to become extremely embarrassing.”
Kwanghee swayed on the balls of his toes and clasped his hands behind his back. “You came all this way and you’re worried about a little embarrassment?”
Heechul took a good look into Kwanghee’s laughing eyes, carved and teased into shape by some knowing surgeon’s scalpel. Kwanghee was not one to be talking about embarrassment, but he kept his thought to himself. A few people began to point at the building.
“It’s just a rumor, isn’t it?”
“Is she here? Was that her?”
“Are they giving out free samples?”
“I don’t see it. Is she really coming?”
“What’s going on? I think I see someone.”
“This is not my fault,” Heechul snapped. “I didn’t know all these people would be here.”
“Look, just get her to come down,” Kwanghee said. “We still have to get groceries.”
They sighed, and paced where they stood.
“I don’t get it,” Heechul muttered. He stared into the crowd, perplexed. “She can’t be that famous, can she?”
Kwanghee gazed upward.
“You kidding? I wish we could be this famous.”
Forty minutes later, the crowd had only grown. Heechul was disgusted. Didn’t the saesangs of Seoul have anything better to do with their time instead of lurking around SNSD’s dormitories?
“It’s cold. I want to go home,” Kwanghee said.
The flowers trembled in Heechul’s hand. He didn't want to leave just yet.
“Look, if we just wait a little longer, I’m sure the crowd will leave and then I can just-y’know, call her from the window or something. And then I can get this over with and then you can go get your groceries.”
“Get this over with,” he mocked. “You sound like you’re forcing yourself to do this. There are easier ways of showing your affection for someone, you know-"
“I want to do this,” Heechul insisted. He eyed the crowd. “I just didn’t count on having an audience.”
“Oh my god,” Kwanghee said. “You are such a pussy. Give me your phone.”
Heechul glared at him.
“Why?”
Kwanghee sighed.
“I’ll get her to come out.”
Heechul hesitated, and then reached into his pocket. He handed over the phone. Kwanghee dialed in a set of numbers, and then held the cell up to his ear.
“Who are you calling?”
“Who else? Jung Soojung.”
“Krystal? I didn’t know you two talked.”
Kwanghee shrugged with one shoulder, chewing on his thumb.
“We talk. We’re good friends, actually.”
Heechul squinted up at the windows.
“Good friends,” he repeated. “I don’t believe that.”
Kwanghee snorted.
“Well, it’s not like you’re especially close to Jessica,” he said tartly.
Kwanghee slid the phone shut with a click, and frowned.
“She didn’t pick up,” Kwanghee said.
Heechul wanted to put his hands in his pockets, or cross his arms. Because of the flowers in his hand, he couldn’t do either, so he did the next best thing: he slouched.
“Good friends, huh?” Heechul asked.
Kwanghee glared at him.
“She’s probably busy or something.”
“Yeah. They’re all the same, you know. Your friends. The ones you say you like-the ones that are supposedly your type. They’re just mean people. Like Krystal. And Siwan.”
“They’re not mean. They’re just busy.”
“Self-absorbed.”
“You’re just bitter,” Kwanghee said. “You wish you were my type.”
“And deal with what Siwan has to put up with everyday? No thanks.”
“Hey.” Kwanghee wrinkled his nose. “He likes it.”
“No, I think it’s just you,” Heechul said, and waited.
Kwanghee squinted up at the sky. Gleefully, Heechul noticed that Kwanghee hadn’t disputed the accusation.
“So you do like Siwan,” he said.
“Duh,” Kwanghee said. “Are you stupid?”
Heechul scowled, and rose once more onto his toes. The crowd looked had grown bigger still.
“But you never talk about it,” he said.
Kwanghee shrugged. “Why would I?” He asked. “I don’t need to, it just is.”
“How long are we going to wait here?” Kwanghee asked.
The sun had already begun its slow descent, and weaved through the skyline as if it was one gigantic, glassy mountain range. The wind was colder now, and heavy with the scent of
failed produce. Heechul glanced at his cellphone.
“Thirty more minutes,” he said. “The crowd will have left by then.”
“Give me a break. We’ll be here all night if you have your way.” Kwanghee began to walk down the street.
“Where are you going?” Heechul asked.
“Speeding up the process,” Kwanghee yelled. He bent down and picked up a rock.
“Do you remember Romeo and Juliet? There’s this scene, where Romeo serenades Juliet from a balcony, right?” he asked. “But to get her attention, he throws a rock at the window first.”
Heechul eyed the rock. It fit into Kwanghee’s palm neatly. And it had better stay there, Heechul thought.
“Okay,” he said. “You made your point. You can put it down now.”
Kwanghee tossed the rock from hand to hand.
“I don’t know. Have I? You made me wait two and a half hours.”
Kwanghee swung the rock through the air. Heechul flinched.
“Put the rock down,” he said. “Don’t be stupid.”
“C’mon,” Kwanghee said. “Girls like that kind of stuff. They think it’s romantic. Like, Taylor Swift or something.”
Heechul looked more closely at the rock. It looked awfully big-bigger than an egg, in fact. He was serious. Heechul began to walk towards Kwanghee.
Kwanghee sank into the stance of a pitcher, swinging his arm slowly through the motion of throwing.
Heechul quickened his pace.
“Don’t you dare.”
Kwanghee brought brought his arm back again, and this time he was aiming somewhere up high, above the balconies. He was aiming at the glass windows. Heechul broke into a run.
“Kwanghee!” Heechul yelled. Oh god, his mind was racing. He’s really going to do it, oh fudge. He broke into a run.
Kwanghee rocked back onto his left foot. He wound up his arm, and his weight sank forward onto his right foot.
“Stop!” Heechul yelled. He actually had meant to say, “Stop and think for a moment you stupid fool,” but in the interim between the words “stop” and “and,” the rock had flown out of Kwanghee’s hand.
It sailed through the air. The trajectory was pristine, meteoric-but it was still a rock. It bounced off the glass with a solid thunk. Thankfully the window didn’t shatter. The rock landed on the other side of the street. The crowd of people slowly turned to face Kwanghee. Somebody in the front pointed at the rock.
“Did you throw that?”
Kwanghee waved at him.
“Hello!” he said brightly.
Someone in the crowd took a photo. Under the shadow of the skyscraper, the flash was dazzling. A figure from the entranced crowd walked up and poked him in the chest. He was heavy-set, wearing a large blue polo shirt. A large camera swung from his neck. He looked like a saesang.
“Did you just throw a rock at Jessica-noona?” He also looked much too old to be calling any female idol “noona.”
“Are you a saesang?” Heechul blurted out. He immediately clapped his hand over his mouth. The man straightened.
“Am I a saesang?” he repeated.
“I’m not,” Kwanghee said.
“I’m not a saesang either,” the man said, “but you’re disturbing Jessica-noona. I think you should leave.”
“We have a right to be here!” Kwanghee said. He pointed at Heechul. “He’s just as much of a saesang as you are.”
“We’re not being disrespectful,” the man said. “We’re just waiting outside. There’s no crime against that.”
“No,” Kwanghee said. “I hope not.”
Heechul wanted to hide behind the bouquet in his hand. He was about to go run and hide down a side street, the crowd gasped and looked up.
Another figure joined the trainees on the balcony. She was lithe and thin, wearing a blue summer dress. Her hair was golden, even more so than the sunset behind her.
“Jessica,” Heechul said.
The saesang followed his gaze.
“Jessica!” he yelled.
The crowd began to point at the group of girls out on the balcony. Already a few cameras were rising up from the surface of the crowd like submarine periscopes.
“Jessica!” someone else shouted.
The trainees clumped together, leaning in towards each other with frowns on their faces. Jessica looked down at the crowd. She was looking for someone.
Heechul watched the spectacle unfold. He was mortified. Kwanghee hit him.
“Go on!” he said. “What are you waiting for?”
Heechul blinked at him, and then looked back up at her.
“Jessica!” Kwanghee yelled, and pointed.
Heechul joined in.
“Jessica!” He yelled. He jumped up but she didn’t see him, so he began to wave his arms. It was only when the other saesangs begin to take pictures of him that Jessica finally glanced his way.
“Jessica!”
Her shocked expression was priceless. Heechul froze as her gaze fastened on him. His arms slowly lowered to her sides. The violets in his hand shed a few petals.
“What are you doing?” Kwanghee yelled. Everybody was yelling.
“The flowers! Give her the flowers!”
Heechul looked up at Jessica. Her expression had shifted back into blankness and trepidation.
Kwanghee shoved him from the back. “Throw them!” Kwanghee shouted.
Heechul snapped to his senses. The flowers! He looked down at the bundle in his hands. And then he looked up. He took a breath and, steeling himself, charged into the crowd.
Get out of my way!” he yelled. Everyone shoved each other and backed up. He took a great running leap, bringing one hand, the one holding the flowers, behind him. He flung his body forward and let fly.
It was too soon to think of failure. What if he hadn’t aimed high enough? What if he’d hit somebody in the crowd? Those flowers were expensive-
He heard a rustling sound, like a footfall on dry autumn leaves. He looked up.
“Dude,” Kwanghee said. He clapped a hand on Heechul’s back. “You hit her in the face.”
Heechul gulped. He looked at the floor of the balcony. The bouquet lay in pieces near Jessica’s feet, finally exhausted and fallen to pieces. His gaze traveled up Jessica’s body, all the way up to her face. Jessica’s nonplussed expression stared down at him.
A great silence had overtaken the crowd.
The cars on the street began to slow down. He saw dull cellphones behind tinted car windows, tiny flashes of light winking. Jessica put her hand on her hips and turned around. She walked back into the building.
Everyone was staring at them. Heechul turned to Kwanghee.
“Maybe we should get out of here.”
He whipped out his cell and dialed the first number in his address book without even looking. He had set security to the first contact in his address book as ABC.
“Hello?” he said. “Pick us up at the corner of D- & B-.”
“Now?” The person on the other line asked.
“Yes, now,” Heechul snapped, and slid his phone shut. People, these days.
“Hyung!” someone called out.
The crowd was getting really big, frothing and bulging at the seams.
“What’s going on?”
“Somebody got attacked-“
“Was he aiming for Jessica?”
“Somebody turn that alarm off-“
“Is she OK?”
“It’s ZE:A!”
Heechul backed away, into the fading sunlight. The crowd was swaying back and forth. Some people were indignant, yelling their way to the front and wriggling through. He heard a dry clatter.
“That was my camera!”
Tires squealed behind him. He heard a click-the sound of a car door unlocking. A honk followed, and he turned around. There was an sedan in the middle of the street-a little old, but nondescript. The windows were tinted, but he could see the driver waving at them.
“C’mon!” he hissed, and grabbed Kwanghee’s arm. The car was still moving, but Heechul yanked the door open. It swung wide, and nearly bowled him over. Heechul shoved Kwanghee inside and climbed in.
“Oww!”
“Get your feet out of my face,” Heechul said. The inside of the car was cool and musty, but it had a strong scent of stale air freshener. He noted with some alarm that several long, stray strands of hair lay on the floor.
“I was so glad you called me, oppa, I didn’t think you’d really-not that I’d doubt you, but things like this are almost unheard of.”
“Tell me about it,” Heechul grunted and pushed himself into a sitting position. The seats were stiff and fuzzy. He reached behind for the seat belt.
He glanced up into the rearview mirror and did a double-take.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The driver turned back to face him. She was an office lady, her hair done up in a messy ponytail, and her rumpled button-down shirt undone at the neck. Her eyes were framed by thick lenses, the kind Minwoo liked to wear. And she was really too old to be calling him “oppa”.
“I’m your biggest fan,” she said. “I rushed out from work as soon as I got your call.”
Heechul gulped. The lyrics from Epik High’s “Fan” trickled through his mind.
“Uh huh,” he said, and stifled a growing sense of dismay. He had called Star Empire’s private security, hadn’t he? How had he ended up in this lady’s car? Who did she say she was? He pulled out his cellphone again, and scrolled through his address book. The first contact on the list was not Star Empire’s security service, which he had set to ABC, but some other number. Kwanghee peered down at the phone.
“AAA? Who’s that?”
“I am.” The driver said. “I have a friend who works for Mnet. She took your phone while you were recording yesterday and added my name to your contacts list.” She straightened her glasses and steered the car to make a left. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Heechul glanced out the window in the periphery of his vision. Unfamiliar shops, garage doors, advertisements and malls zipped by. The dismay in his stomach was rapidly congealing into a thick and rubbery panic.
“Actually, I think we have to go,” he said. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He looked at Kwanghee.
“Do you want to leave so soon?” she asked. Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel, glossy with polish. “We only just met.”
Heechul’s pocket buzzed. He jumped in his seat. Kwanghee pulled the phone out of his pocket for him.
“It’s Krystal,” he announced.
“You should take the call,” Heechul suggested. He frowned strongly at Kwanghee, wiggling his eyebrows. And tell her to come and save us, he thought.
Kwanghee brought the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
Heechul looked out the window again. His fingers tapped a nervous beat on the armrest.
“So,” he said. He cast about for a topic, anything. “You’re my fan, huh?”
“Soojung!” Kwanghee said. “I just called you. How’ve you been?”
“That’s right,” the driver said, and readjusted her glasses. She sat up.
“Where are you taking us?” Heechul asked.
“Wherever you want to go is fine with me, oppa.” Her voice was strong and confident, but her eyes kept flickering up to the rearview mirror.
“Well, it’s a long story-“
Kwanghee turned to face Heechul. He was beaming, but Heechul couldn’t tell what emotion he was trying to convey, or whether he was trying to communicate with Heechul at all. He felt a sharp tug in his gut and sat up.
“Watch the road,” Heechul said. The driver twisted back around to face the front.
“Sorry about that!”
Heechul let his glance flicker from Kwanghee to her. They both shared the same expression-happy, but sad.
“Oh no,” Kwanghee continued. “We left a long time ago. Honestly, I had no idea it would cause such a commotion.”
Now that Heechul had calmed down, he could ruminate on the situation. He didn’t seem to be in any apparent danger. In fact, he’d always told himself that it would be really nice to have fans, and that he should appreciate them. He liked having fans-that is, he liked fanmail, fanletters, fansigns, and fanchants; he even liked the fan merchandise and the fanmeetings. He just didn’t know whether he liked actual fans, one-on-one. This was a little unnerving. He had just enough time to wonder what it was that she supposedly liked about him before Kwanghee broke out into an obnoxious peal of laughter that was somehow both joyous and yet pained.
“Yeah,” he said.
“So, where would you like to go?” she asked. “I mean, I’d love to spend more time with you, but,” she laughed nervously, “can we park somewhere? I’m just an office lady, I can’t afford much gas, but I could take you out for coffee-“
“Actually,” Kwanghee broke in. “It’d be great if you could just drop us off at the nearest Lotte Mart.”
She paused.
“Oh,” she said, and her fingers flexed around the steering wheel, opening and closing. “Sure, I can do that for you.”
Heechul squirmed. Jerk, he thought, and twisted the seatbelt in his hands. There’s no need to be so blunt.
“OK!” She chirped anxiously, and reached up to fiddle with the GPS attached to her windshield. Heechul squinted at the tiny screen.
“Sorry,” he said to the girl. “Our busy schedules-“
“No, I completely understand.”
Kwanghee cradled Heechul’s cellphone against his cheek. Heechul made a mental note to wipe it before using it again.
“Oh really? I didn’t know you had another variety appearance, you never tell me these things!” Kwanghee continued. Heechul rolled his eyes. This was useless.
“My minutes,” he said, and held out his hand.
“Mmhm,” Kwanghee said, and turned away, pointedly ignoring Heechul. “Wow, that sucks.”
Heechul sighed and shoved his hand back in his pocket. He could hear music playing in the background, tiny and indistinct.
“Oppa, were you going to see SNSD’s Jessica?” The driver asked. Heechul nodded.
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
The driver smiled shyly at him.
“I like you, oppa. I want to know everything about you. If I could, I’d like to ask you out on a date.”
“Uh,” Heechul said. “Wow.”
That had been forward. He stumbled onto a protest.
“But you know, I have schedules, and, um, we have to avoid paparazzi, and it’s not good for my reputation…”
A thought occurred to him.
“But you know I like Jessica,” he said.
She smiled, looking straight ahead.
“I know. “
“Well then,” Heechul said. “You should know that I can’t return your feelings-at least not like that.”
She laughed again.
“Oppa,” she said, only now she sounded much older, much more mature and self-assured. “I know.”
The car rumbled to a halt.
“Here you are,” she said. Kwanghee got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. Heechul followed him out. He lingered at the front of the car. The driver rolled down the window.
“Yes?” she asked, and tugged at a small scarf around her neck. Heechul wanted to tell her that it was a nice touch, brilliant really, a bright splash of color against the drab palette of her business casual. He still had a rose hidden up his pants leg. He’d been saving it for Jessica, anticipating a more intimate setting.
“Hold on,” he said, and turned around, sinking into a squat. Finally, he wrestled the thorny plant out of his socks, and turning around, held it out to her.
“Um,” he said. “For you.”
She reached out for it and grabbed his hand instead. Heechul froze.
“Oppa,” she said. She was much too old for it and she knew it, but it didn’t stop her from trying. Heechul was torn between the desire to placate her and to run screaming into the store. But she only waited, their hands intertwined around the prickly stem, and the longer he stayed, the more it felt as if she had been the one waiting to give the flower to him.
He wrenched his hand free and bowed, and nearly hit his head against the petals.
“Thanks, sorry, gotta go!” he said, and turned around. He was hot and angry and scared and his jacket had trapped all the cold sweat down his back like a prison.
She didn’t linger, and rejoined the flow of traffic after only minimal hesitation. Once she was out of sight, he punched Kwanghee in the shoulder.
“Oww!” Kwanghee yelped. The expression on his face was one of painful delight. He was still on the phone.
“Could you be any more-“ Heechul shook his head and shoved his fist back in his pocket. “Forget it.”
“What?” Kwanghee asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Now can I have my phone back?”
They ducked into the Lotte Mart. Heechul headed straight for the food section and reached into his pocket for the grocery list. His fingers brushed against the phone in his pocket, and it jumped in his hands. He pulled it out, looked at the screen, and winced.
“Who was it?”
“Nobody,” Heechul said, and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He scowled at the passerby and grabbed an abandoned cart. They walked down Aisle #3, cruising the shelves for bleach and detergent. Kwanghee, as usual, displayed far more insight than Heechul gave him credit for.
“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” he asked. Heechul folded the grocery list in his hands.
“We need ramyun,” he said. He pulled a pen out of his back pocket, and made a note on the back side of the page.
“You’re not picking up the phone.”
“No,” Heechul said. He made two 90 degree turns at the end of the aisle. This one held babies and mothers and canned soup.
“Why are you being such a jerk?” Kwanghee asked. Heechul gripped the handlebars of the shopping cart. He was reminded of a roller coaster ride, only in slow motion, as if he was climbing up some winding path from which he would soon plummet.
“It’s creepy and persistent.”
Kwanghee snickered, poking at the dangling packets of nuts and chocolate.
“It’s love.”
Heechul shuddered.
“Don’t talk to me about her,” he said. “She scares me.”
“She likes you,” Kwanghee, and it was like someone had pulled the brakes on the ride. Was there still time to disembark? Heechul dawdled halfway down Aisle #2 and checked the list again. Tofu, but they needed to get that last. Next… He walked away from Kwanghee, into an intersection. Kimchi.
“And I don’t like her.”
“She’s a fan,” Kwanghee said. “Be careful, she might be recording you as we speak.”
“Management should have taken care of this,” Heechul said. “How did she get access to my phone?”
“When there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Heechul glanced back at Kwanghee. When Kwanghee was being honest, he could be quite trite.
“Is that how you handle things with Siwan?” he asked, partly to distract, and partly to prove a point. Kwanghee frowned. A shadow flickered across his face.
“Don’t be mean.”
They moseyed down the aisle and turned into a larger pathway. They needed to cross over into aisle #6, which held jarred and canned goods.
“Look,” Heechul snapped. “It’s not my fault she likes me.”
“You talked to her. You let her in,” Kwanghee said.
“So it’s my fault now?”
Aisle 4.
“You let her think she had a chance,” Kwanghee said. “By not rejecting her outright.”
“Her feelings are not my responsibility,” Heechul protested. “I don’t have time to babysit people.”
“Sure, why’d you chat her up in the car back then?”
Aisle 5.
“I wasn’t chatting her up, that was a defense mechanism. Someone had to make conversation. Jesus,” Heechul shook his head. “You people keep twisting everything. I’m not a skirt-chaser.”
Aisle 6. They turned the corner.
“You have to admit, though,” Kwanghee said. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. Didn’t you tell us about that girl, before you were a trainee-“
“That was genuine,” Heechul said quickly.
Canned specialty meats: eel, squid, pigs' feet, chicken…
“And the receptionist at the front desk, you chat all the time-“
“She’s lonely, we were both new to Seoul at the time.”
Canned beans, barley, soups and stews…
“Admit it, you like it. You like getting people to like you, you like talking to them and making them feel like they should like you.”
“It’s a crime to make small talk? To be well-liked by the fairer sex?”
Canned liquids: soya milk, coconut milk, milk powder…
Kwanghee changed tactics.
“If you really cared, you’d tell her to back off. At least text her back. Tell her you’re not interested, instead of just ignoring her. That’s irresponsible.”
“What would be the point? She’d just swoon over the fact that I responded. At least this way I’m not leading her on or anything.”
Jars: honey, preserved lychee, fermented plums…
Kwanghee snickered.
“Are you dumb?” he asked. “That’s the whole damn point. She wants to be led on.”
Jars: kimchi, 20 different kinds.
He stopped the cart and grabbed the local brand of kimchi off the shelf, two jars. He stared down at them, then reconsidered, grabbing a third jar. They moved on.
“I already told her I liked Jessica,” Heechul muttered. He tossed the phone around in his pocket, end over end. “It’s her own fault if she can’t face reality.”
He stopped the cart, and pointed up.
“We need the Shin ramyun,” he said. “Get the chicken, alright? Nobody liked the beef last time.”
“Jessica probably thinks the same thing about you too,” Kwanghee pointed out. He reached up and grabbed a bulk bundle of cup ramyun and placed it into the cart, next to the kimchi.
“That’s different,” Heechul said. “I still have a chance. Jessica hasn’t rejected me yet.”
“How do you know? Maybe she does the same thing too-maybe she’s just not going to respond. At all.”
“She wouldn’t do that. She’s different.”
“Different? You mean different, like different from you and I and that office lady? Different, like maybe she doesn’t stalk her crushes? Like what, she’s not an obsessive freak?”
“Different, like you think Siwan is different from everybody else,” Heechul shot back.
Kwanghee whistled. “Differ-ent,” he enunciated. “You think she’s the real deal.”
“I never said-“
“Okay. Well, go on then. Prove it. If you call her, will she pick up? Or will she just ignore you and wait for you to go away?”
“I know my limits, I know when to stop-“ he broke off, and glared at Kwanghee. “Unlike some people.”
They changed subject.
“Well, if nothing else, doesn’t that encourage you?” Kwanghee asked. “To see someone else trying so hard for their love? Makes you want to do a better job with our own love life, doesn’t it?”
Heechul scowled, and unfolded the grocery list. Tofu, they needed tofu. No, they didn’t need tofu. They needed a joke to defuse the tension.
“Hyung, he said. I watch you try all the time. It’s not encouraging at all.”
“Ha-ha. Stupid, I was talking about her.”
Heechul folded up the list again. Wrong joke, idiot, he told himself. Now you have to follow through.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Heechul said. “You’re just as annoying and unwanted to Siwan as she is to me.”
“Siwan and I are friends,” Kwanghee said.
Heechul sped up. He never should have brought up Siwan. This kind of banter walked a thin line between being truthful and treacherous.
“Sure,” he said. “Or maybe he just let you in and didn’t realize how persistent you are.”
Kwanghee easily matched his speed. His long legs swung through the air.
“Don’t compare me to little miss Office Lady,” Kwanghee said lightly. “We’re not the same.”
The cart clattered in time to the rhythm of his speech and his footsteps.
“He probably feels sorry for you,” Heechul said. “I bet Siwan only meant to talk you just the one time, he probably felt sorry for you or something.”
Something dark and hopeful was rising in Heechul’s throat. Stop this, he told himself. Shut up, stop being mean. But instead he continued.
“Or he didn’t know what he was getting into, but by then, it was too late. He let you in,” Heechul said bluntly. “But he can still shut you out.”
Heechul didn’t look back, but he saw the clenched fist swinging at Kwanghee’s side. He was silent for a moment.
“Well spoken from the casanova,” Kwanghee said. His voice was low. “And you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Heechul gripped the cart and flexed his fingers on the handle.
“I told you not to call me that!” he burst out.
The cart hit a pole.
Silence. A child jumped up and down somewhere at the other end of the corridor. Near an icy vat of meat, another man’s cart moaned and squeaked. Heechul looked around, and spotted the tofu soaking in some plastic bins along the wall.
“I’ll get the tofu,” he said, and walked off. He took his time inspecting the squishy packets of compressed soybean, turning them over and comparing their ingredients and prices and sell-by dates.
Kwanghee coughed from behind him. Heechul jumped, and then sighed. He turned around and tossed the packet he was holding into the cart.
The freezer was exhaling on Heechul, one long steady breath of machinery and compressed air. He put his hands back onto the handlebar and turned the cart from side to side.
“Anyways, I can’t be worried about crazies. Like you said,” he said bitterly, “I have my own situation to worry about.” He flashed an ingratiating smile but Kwanghee didn’t catch it. Instead, he was staring into the putrid vats of seaweed further down.
“I’ve probably created a bad situation for now,” Heechul mumbled. “I think I’ll just lie low. Or do you think I should try and contact her? Explain things?”
Kwanghee refused to look up. Heechul ran a hand through his hair and stared down at the groceries.
“I don’t want her to get the wrong impression,” Heechul continued. “Because that’s not who I am.”
It was very rare that Kwanghee was silent. Heechul pulled out the list again.
“Let’s go,” he mumbled. Keeping his eyes on the floor tiles, he began to walk, taking many small, quick, steps. The cart rolled shakily down the aisle, and he nearly overturned a stand of potatoes. Kwanghee’s hand dipped into the periphery of his vision and steadied the cart. They slowed down to a reasonable pace. The checkout counters were on the other side of the store.
They wheeled into the checkout line.
The cashier was a young woman, perky in her red vest with her bright little pins, totoro and some other little cartoons. Her face were puffy and swollen, an obvious sign of plastic surgery not fully healed, but her smile was big and inviting, and before Heechul could stop himself he had opened his mouth.
“I like the pins,” he said.
She beamed at him, and thanked him for the compliment. He wondered what she’d got done. She looked conventionally pleasing now. That’s what consumerism did to you-made you all the same so you have to buy out just to look different. The insight made him colder, and he returned her smile less confidently.
She kept her head down and scanned the produce quickly and silently. Another worker, standing at the end of the counter, grabbed their purchases and placed them into paper bags that snapped as she opened them.
“217400 won,” the cashier said, the pins shining brightly on her vest.
“You aren’t even giving her a chance,” Kwanghee said. He swiped his card through, sloppily scribbling his signature onto the datapad.
“Is that what you think Siwan is going to give you?” Heechul asked. “A second chance?”
He took the bags from the packer. He handed one to Kwanghee. They left the store, splashing into the hot and humid evening outside.
“That was uncalled for,” Kwanghee said. “You don’t know anything about it at all.”
That wasn’t true, but Heechul had said enough for today.
Kwanghee looked up at the skyscrapers around them, lit up with glowing tubes of inert gases like neon and argon.
“I hope you know what you’re getting into.” Kwanghee shouted over the traffic. “If Jessica doesn’t like you, there’s nothing you can do. You better hope that you fell in love with someone who can love you back. I’m fine being Siwan’s best friend, but what are you going to do?”
They stopped at a crossing.
“Can you handle that?” Kwanghee asked. “You’re going to be feeling the same exact way that girl feels.”
“I know,” Heechul snapped.
It was the same old bullshit again. Heechul should just stay away from girls. Girls loved Heechul, but Heechul always wanted better. Heechul was great and witty and funny but it only meant that the breakups came harder. And somehow it was always his fault. He wouldn’t have minded so much if people just took responsibility for the way they felt instead of expecting other people to accommodate them.
He glared at the ground, clenching and unclenching his fists. The feeling sustained him all the way back to the dorm, where he took off his shoes, placed the groceries onto the table, and shuffled back to his room. He grabbed his notebook and began to root around for a pen. A belligerent hum interrupted him. He sighed and straightened, reaching into his pocket.
He pulled out the phone, finally, and looked at the screen.
Thanks for the flowers :) Want to get coffee sometime?
-AAA
Heechul almost screamed. Instead, he unlocked the window, pushed it open, pulled his hand back, and hurled the phone out into space. He stood at the windowsill, chest heaving. Then he slammed the window down again and sat on the floor, and put his head in his hands.
Later, he wouldn’t be able to explain to the manager and Junyoung why he had done it, only able to say that the text message had disturbed him. But, he confessed to Kwanghee later that night, it hadn’t really been the text message itself that had frightened him, but the curious sense of displacement he had experienced afterwards. As he explained it more fully, he had felt that, while staring out the window, he had in fact been in two places at once. He knew he had been next to the window, staring down at the remnants of his phone, but somehow he had also been down there in that tiny square plot of dumpster, scruffy grass, and weeds. He had been looking up, grazing the skyline for someone’s elusive gaze. And at the last second, he had looked up into himself.
Poll Round 5: How Jung Heechul Lost His Cellphone, or: Violets Are Not the Answer